10/17/21 - The Great Power Play - Westminster Presbyterian Church Westminster Presbyterian Church | Serving God and others with open mind, hands and heart - 10/17/21

10/17/21 – The Great Power Play

THE GREAT POWER PLAY

October 17, 2021
21^st Sunday after Pentecost
Job 23:1-17; Ps. 22; Heb. 4:12-16; Mk. 10:17-31
Rev. Denise Clark-Jones

For the third week, we drop in on Job’s story, which explores the unanswerable question: “If God is good, then why is there so much evil and suffering in the world?” Job has experienced the loss of his children, his wealth, and his health. According to Job’s worldview, this calamity makes no sense. If you are good, you are blessed. If you sin, you are cursed. Job is completely innocent; therefore, God is the one who has made an error. Job’s life is in chaos and God has let the world descend into chaos by his absence.

What keeps Job going is his unwavering resolve not to let God go, to hold God to God’s promises. What is at stake is God’s covenant promising never to abandon humanity. After 37 chapters of Job’s long-winded rants about God’s silence, in today’s reading, God finally shows up – in a whirlwind, no less! Talk about a dramatic entrance!

Job’s persistent demands for God to grant him an audience to present his case, demonstrate his faithfulness. His refusal to believe God desires his suffering is the glimmer of hope for Job’s transformation and reconciliation. Lament is an act of faith for this one reason: it means casting all our hope upon God. During God’s perceived absence, each of the characters involved in Job’s story has presented various responses to the central question.

Job believed that the world is a manageable place, run by a demanding, yet predictable God, operating on a simple quid pro quo basis. Job has been righteous and faithful; therefore, God owes Job a happy, healthy, and prosperous life. Similarly, the satan, Job’s accuser, holds that human beings are only faithful and righteous because they have been blessed with good things. Job’s wife has suffered also. She is overwhelmed and sees God as a capricious puppet master whose strings we must cut to maintain our dignity.

Job’s banter with his friends, who come to comfort him, is a superb example of literary humor. Each of Job’s three friends offers explanations for the question of God’ role in human suffering. ‘How dare you question God, Job? “Surely, you must have done something to deserve this. We know there is no such thing as unjust suffering. God is teaching you a lesson. We cannot understand the will of God. You must accept your circumstances and get on with life.’ This trio of amateur theologians is stuck in their inability to consider a different perspective. They are incapable of imagining a new future for Job or themselves. However, Job is a better model of faith because he remains open to new information, even if it contradicts what he thought he knew to be true. His lamentations, his anger and his eagerness to engage in dialogue with God are all signs of strong, not weak, faith.

Unexpectedly, when God appears on the scene, God does not address Job’s accusations directly, but instead waxes poetic over the wonders of Creation. God is directing Job to look at the world through God’s eyes. Job wants to talk about rules and security, but God speaks of wonder and danger. God speaks of the foundations of the earth not righteousness or justice. God describes the intricate design of creation that is beyond humanity’s ability to understand, operate or recreate. God dismisses Job’s anthropocentric focus by revealing the delicate balance between all elements of the natural created world. It is God’s testimonial against humanity’s attempt to dominate and exploit nature for maximum profits.

Nature is often the setting for experiencing the wonder of God. There are times and places in nature that take our breath away. The effects of climate change have reached a point that we can no longer pretend that we have not entered a new stage of the earth’s lifespan. Though the myth that the change is natural is revealed in the unprecedented changes that began with the industrial revolution, with the effects proceeding exponentially, there is no arguing with the facts. The earth is heating up at a rapid pace and natural disasters – hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, and flooding – have become the norm. Nature plays by its own rules, not ours. When we intercede with actions that do not fit God’s intended design, the results are calamitous. Within God’s plans for the universe, there is freedom for intervention to either harm or nurture the perfect balance God created. God’s creation will continue to recreate that balance, even if it means our own destruction.

God’s unspoken question for Job is: ‘Can you love what you cannot control or fully understand. I would offer an example: taking on the role of a parent requires just that. As I often quote: “The first 40 years of parenthood are the hardest.” Yet we willingly and enthusiastically take on this role, which will bring us fear and force us to sacrifice. Job is challenged, as we are, to decide if it is possible to trust God, to love God fully, even knowing that God will not protect us from tragedy, pain, and suffering? God tells Job that, in no uncertain terms, God is in charge and only God is capable of being in charge.

In our epistle reading from Hebrews, the author continues God’s lesson to Job concerning who’s in charge and expounds on the nature of Christ’s leadership. Using the familiar Jewish role of the high priest to describe Jesus’ divine leadership over humanity, the author of Hebrews claims Jesus can be our salvation from our sins because he understood the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of humanity. Jesus himself had experienced suffering and temptation; he knew how they affected our ability to be faithful and obedient to God. And, with an admonition appropriate for a response to James and John’s request to sit at Christ’s left and right in God’s Kingdom, Hebrews’ author describes Jesus’ acceptance of his role: “And one does not presume to take this honor but takes it only when called by God.”

In our gospel reading for today, Jesus was trying to train his disciples to become leaders of his mission when he would no longer be with them. It had been rough going. Twice, Jesus had told them he must die before he is raised again to be with his Father in Heaven. Twice he had announced to his disciples they must continue his work being servants of those in need. They had observed, first-hand, their teacher’s humility and service to the most marginalized and powerless people in society. Yet today we read James and John have the bone-headed audacity to ask Jesus if they could be his highest-level associates when he “came into his glory” in God’s Kingdom. Just making the request demonstrated their lack of readiness to take on any kind of leadership role in Jesus’ organization. Once again, Jesus announced that service to the highest in the divine realm was to be accomplished by service to the lowest of humanity on earth. Jesus turns the business model of the world upside down and replaces it with the divine model of the kingdom of God on earth.

The worst that human evil could do was done to Jesus. As the author of Hebrews explained, Christ understands our suffering because he suffered. A former colleague of mine recounted a time when she was venting to her mother about her job as a pastor. Her mother responded: “Well they crucified our Lord, why are you complaining.” Like Job’s unanswered question, Jesus left us to come up with our own theories of the passion mystery. All we know is what Job learned: The world is God’s creation, filled with terrifying and wondrous things. Everything God created is infused with amazing grace and to love is to enter a beautiful and risky relationship. The Bible points not to an answer, but a covenant and a promise. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is God’s promise that in Christ all things are held together by God’s steadfast love and that, one day, how far in the future we cannot know, everything will be made new. There will be no more crying, and God will wipe away every tear. Until then, God will always be in charge, and we are to follow God’s will which has been revealed to us through Christ. By staying the course, he set for us, we may be assured that God is with us.

Amen. May it be so!

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